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Instagram Stories vs Snapchat misses the point

Author: Melanie Fawcett,
Producer on Purpose

Melanie Fawcett is the Founder and Head of Storytelling at Producer on Purpose, an educational hub and movement of mindful storytellers with a focus on empowering people and brands to share stories that matter. Mel writes and talks a lot, whether that be through video, digital content, old-fashioned books, speaking or teaching workshops that focus on forward thinking marketing meets mindful self development. Her first book #popphilosophy will be out in 2016.

Like a ripped Bondi Rescue Life Saver/Reality TV Star hurtling towards us at warp speed, last week Instagrammers were thrown a personal flotation device of a different kind.

Instagram Stories.

The latest battle in the social media surf is on like King Kong vs Donkey Kong.

The funny thing is, for entrepreneurs developing brands – there is no battle. Only a plate of chocolate brownies at the top of the mountain while we watch all the big guys kick each other’s butts down below. Here’s why.

From the minute Instagram Stories was beamed down from Planet Zuckerberg, we knew that our brand motherships would never be the same. Giving our Instagram tribes direct and easy access to our realest and rawest selves IS a game changer, as it allows us to speak to our truest tribes. Like now, we are gettin’ really, really real and not just a bit really, real. Really?

Collective Hub’s Lisa Messenger reflected, “Within the first hour of posting an Instagram Story, I had 15x the amount of views than I do for a similar update on my beloved Snapchat.”

Lisa noticed an increase in views on her Instagram, but the opposite can also be true for smaller brands with less influence, including startups. This is a VERY good thing. We have an opportunity to connect with the exact people who not only want to hear our message, but even more importantly, want to hear it from us. Because now – our brand story just got a whole lot deeper.

One of the first Instagram Stories I watched was from two American guys I absolutely adore – The Gay Beards, {if you don’t follow them, you should, they are photographically sensational} I have never seen them speak out of their usual curated perfection, or the “museum” of Instagram, as social media guru Gary Vaynerchuk calls it. Their regular Instagram photos look like a magazine, beautiful, but lacking in a personal narrative.

Then all of a sudden – their Instagram Story beamed me straight into the private, leafy back garden of their real home, where they were both digging in the dirt, in natural light, hanging out with a friend and speaking to me like we were BFFs! It was intimate, a bit naughty – you can’t even leave a comment so it was completely anonymous and voyeuristic – but that’s its beauty and its genius.

It gives us exactly what we have voted with our phones for – unedited connectivity, stories that are spontaneous and all right next to the old Instagram museum that we love to wander through looking at the pretty and thoughtful things.

The rise of the real is a chicken and egg scenario. But we are both the chickens and the eggs. Critics would say that these platforms dictate the trends – this is simply not true. We as individual users and small brands wield global influence now that makes us the insiders and the big guys the outsiders. We make the trends from the outside and the big guys have to come out there to visit us, because its so fun and raw and real out here, that they are beginning to feel like nobody cares about them anymore. Awwwww, poor giant corporations.

Breakin’ it down;

Instagram Stories is social proof that global trends are prioritising us small brands. Yewww!

We can literally hang out with our truest of true tribes {and be youer than you like Dr Suess says!} either at the Insta museum or in each other’s backyards.

More important than which platform we choose, are the stories that we tell.

So, now we jump in the jelly! Over to YOU GUYS. This week’s OC CHAT Question is –

Who’s Instagram Stories are engaging you and why?

Drop in and share your thoughts with your fellow OC tribers on the blog, as we discuss the big and small ideas and how we entrepreneurs can understand the stuff that matters. Boom!